"Why can't I find any Cigar City beer?" seems to be a common question lately along the Panhandle and throughout parts of Florida. However, we may soon see a noticeable increase in CCB products flowing into the local area. A recent email we received from Joe Burns, CCB's National Sales Manager, stated:

Cigar City Brewing has done all that we can to have a presence once again in the Florida panhandle. We have done everything we can, in working with our distributors, not to bring on new accounts to sell our products. However the amount of beer sold in our existing retail outlets has gone up over 75% this past year. We still are unable to meet demand even with the expansion of the brewery. We will be receiving 6 additional 120bbl tanks in the month of August. This will essentially max out our capacity at our Tampa facility at about 60,000bbls. With this expansion we do envision going back into the Florida panhandle full time with our core beers as well as our seasonals.

Photo Courtesy of Cigar City: Brewhouse #2 with four new 120bbl tanks

Though it may be disappointing not to find your favorite CCB product on the shelf, it's great news that the demand for CCB just within Florida is so great that CCB can't meet demand, even with recent expansions.

On Monday, Cigar City posted on their Facebook page that two of the 120 bbl tanks already arrived. So hopefully soon we will have a steady inflow of CCB into the Florida panhandle.